The liquidity trap is synonymous with ineffective monetary policy. The common wisdom is that, as the short-term interest rate nears its effective lower bound, monetary policy cannot do much to stimulate the economy. However, central banks have resorted to alternative instruments, such as QE,...

Should a monetary authority lean against the build-up of financial imbalances? We study this policy question in an environment in which there are recurring cycles of financial imbalances that develop over time and eventually collapse in a costly manner. The optimal policy reflects the trade-off...

Recent international experience with the effective lower bound on nominal interest rates has rekindled interest in the benefits of inflation targets above 2 per cent. We evaluate whether an increase in the inflation target to 3 or 4 per cent could improve macroeconomic stability in the Canadian...

In this paper, we use cross-industry, cross-country panel data to test whether industry growth is positively affected by the interaction between the reaction of real short-term interest rates to the business cycle and industry-level measures of financial constraints. Financial constraints are...

This paper argues that incorporating information about the financial cycle is important to improve measures of potential output and output gaps. Conceptually, identifying potential output with non-inflationary output is too restrictive. Potential output is seen as sustainable; yet experience...

A popular strategy for estimating output gaps is to anchor them to structural economic relationships. The resulting output gaps, however, are often highly sensitive to numerous auxiliary assumptions inherent in the approach. This complicates their use in policymaking. We illustrate the point...

Loan syndication increases bank interconnectedness through co-lending relationships. We study the financial stability implications of such dependency on syndicate partners in the presence of shocks to banks' capital. Model simulations in a network setting show that such shocks can produce rare...

Collateral constraints widely used in models of financial crises feature a pecuniary externality: Agents do not internalize how borrowing decisions taken in "good times" affect collateral prices during a crisis. We show that agents in a competitive equilibrium borrow more than a financial...

We employ a threshold vector autoregression (TVAR) methodology in order to examine the nonlinear nature of the interactions among credit market conditions, monetary policy, and economic activity. We depart from the existing literature on the subject along two dimensions. First, we focus on a...

The unconventional shocks and non-linear dynamics behind the high volatility of financial markets present a challenge for the implementation of macroprudential policy. This paper introduces two of these unconventional shocks, news shocks about future fundamentals and regime changes in global...